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A Social Psychologist On Five Elements Of Good Writing

November 1, 2022

As grantmakers become more isolated from most grantseekers, and most grantseekers become less visible to grantmakers, the art of writing becomes more and more critical to relationship-building success. There are a thousand good articles on good grant writing. Joachim Kreuger, a social psychologist from Brown University, offers these universal writing good elements:

Relevance: A good text conveys the information that matters, although a few exceptions can spice things up without much distraction.

Economy: Wordiness debases writing by diluting it. I began this post with the sentence “Good writing is hard,” when I could have written, “It has long been recognized that writers must overcome many difficult challenges before they can deliver an appealing and comprehensible body of text.” Look out for boilerplate and run-on sentences! Even if a sentence is sound, most adverbs and adjectives can be stricken without loss of information. Strong action verbs communicate better than noun-heavy phrases.

Vividness: Good writing evokes images in the reader’s mind. It is perceptual and hallucinatory. A poor text allows readers to hear the words in their minds without evoking images. Again, action verbs help.

Coherence: The text must hang together, tell a story, and follow a narrative arc. Lists don’t do this, and this post is playing with fire. Each part of the text has its own mission. Section headers can help, but an elegant text won’t always need them. When the writing is good, readers know where they are in the story.

Humor: A good text is entertaining, and humor is a spice that keeps boredom at bay. Good humor is subtle and not thigh-slapping. Good humor lets the reader in on a joke without being condescending or obscure.

Filed Under: Toolbox, news & Resources

Five silly grantseeking mistakes

June 19, 2021

Philanthropy Daily newsletter and blog are published by American Philanthropic, a conservative-leaning philanthropy research and consulting group. Lots of good content. With support from funders and fundraisers, they’ve put together their favorite Five Silly Grantmaking Mistakes:

— Missed deadlines
— Proposals lacking in content
— Too much selling
— Not doing your homework
— Giving up too soon (YES, WE ABSOLUTELY AGREE!)

Filed Under: Toolbox

How to plan a Golf Fundraiser. Data map on race and ethnic populations

August 29, 2021

”
— Nonprofit Tech for Good is offering a free online seminar on “Why & How to Plan a Successful Golf Fundraiser in 2022” on September 28. Registration is required.
— Need some quick demographic data about changes in racial and ethnic population growth in your Metro community? StarTrib recently did a little piece with an interactive growth map.
“

Filed Under: Toolbox

New terms and words that funders and grantseekers have been using recently

December 5, 2022

New Language and Terms (at least for some of us)

BIMPOC – Black, Indigenous, Multiracial, People of Color. This more inclusive term is becoming more popular in philanthropy trade journals

Third Places – Read the Walton Family Foundation’s opinion piece on funding “third places,” including non-work and non-home places, commercial and public indoor places like bars, restaurants, cafés, barber shops, beauty salons, museums, and libraries, as well as outdoor places like trails and bike paths.

Latine – There’s a growing debate about the use of “Latinx” as an all-inclusive term for people of all the folks who used to be included in “Hispanics” and “Latinx”. We each get to choose our own names.

Canopy Gap and Tree Grief – The Star Tribune recently had a piece on how poor neighborhoods have so many fewer trees and shrubbery than wealthy neighborhoods. Evidently, there are some very serious problems when we don’t have enough trees which we call “canopy gaps” or “tree grief”.

Virtue Signaling – Another old term that’s resurfaced – Mostly intended for corporations or powerful people, “virtue signaling” implies actions taken only to improve their moral reputation. In the early 1990s, it was overused by folks who were pointing out politicos or businesses who did something that looked great that was also hugely visible. It’s back and for good reason.

Revisiting Capacity Building and Strategic Philanthropy – One of my favorite opinionators, Sara EchoHawk, wrote a nice piece for Nonprofit Quarterly in 2019 on “capacity building” and how many funders use “strategic philanthropy” as code for “overly prescriptive grantmaking”. Both capacity building and strategic philanthropy are back in style. Maybe it’s good to think what each term really means.

Narrative Change – We debated whether to put this item here, in the Toolbox section or the Survey Says area. Narrative change is a becoming more popular as a distinct and successful tool for advocates and human service people alike. Critical Race Theory and Climate Change stories are two key examples of narrative change. This report, Funding Narrative Change, defines terms, delineates benefits (e.g., funders want to learn), and provides “how to” examples. An important read for people who need to open minds.

Filed Under: Philanthropy Trends, Toolbox, news & Resources

Words And Phrases To Avoid – 2022 Edition

March 25, 2022

Words And Phrases To Avoid – 2022 Edition

According to Candid (the merger of Foundation Directory Online and Guidestar), there are eight phrases that are not 2022-acceptable.

[Read more…] about Words And Phrases To Avoid – 2022 Edition

Filed Under: Toolbox

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